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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Apprehensive girl decides it is safe enough to get picture taken with Shamu... as long as mommy is doing it too.

After that girl walks away with elated joy and renewed confidence after having come so close to Shama and surviving. Girl now thinks she is near invincible and can do just about anything, including kiss Shama, and asks if she can go back, stand in line (again, for the third time, since girl completely chickened out the first time) and this time kiss Shamu. Mother knows girl will ask incessantly until mission is accomplished (mother wonders why her own parents think that it is so funny that girl has same tendencies as mother, i.e. asking questions incessantly and somehow feel rewarded for said mother now having to live with the tortures she put her own parents through). Mother and daughter wait in line. Girl walks with self-assurance towards Shamu...

Girl loses all feelings of self-assurance halfway to Shamu and returns to mother.

Mother explains that this is the last chance for any interaction with Shamu. After a moment of deep contemplation girl returns to Shamu plops a quick peck on his cheek and quite nearly floats away from renewed confidence and a heart full of love for Shamu.

Girl then spends the next 4 days talking incessantly about her brush with fame.

Mother is overjoyed with girls excitement and new found self-confidence!

Thursday, July 24, 2008

A couple of years ago, it seems like a lifetime ago, my husband and I worked at a group home where we were house parents to 3 (and at one point 4) fabulous teenagers. Among those kids was Paul. Man I miss Paul! Paul loved our kids. At the time there was just Bella and Buddy. Paul also loved to dance. The combination of dancing with one of the kids seemed to be among his very favorite things to do.

I love these photos of him with Bella. Not half as much as Bella loved being treated like the queen of the house with 3 doting older "siblings".

**Paul was adopted this spring... at 18 years old! That almost never happens.

Monday, July 21, 2008

For those of you who have not done the whole myspace thing let me give you a little m.s. 101. When you are online on myspace if you look in the right hand column of your page you can see the profile picture of any of your myspace friends that are also online at that time. Under your friend's profile picture are the words 'online' and under that is a link to click on to send that friend a message.

While on myspace the other day I saw that my good friend April was online. I owed her a message and so I clicked on 'send a message' and sent April a silly little note that started off with a friendly "Hey Bebe!"

The next day I received an email letting me know I had a myspace message from Brandon, April's husband. I thought that was strange because Brandon never emails me. Then thought maybe April had just been online under Brandon's account and emailed me. So I checked. What I found was a very polite reply to my flirtatious message that I had sent to BRANDON - NOT TO APRIL! It seems that when I had been online the day before I saw an adorable picture of Jeep, April and Brandon's son. A photo of Jeep happens to be April's profile picture and so I had not even looked at the name. I saw a picture of Jeep and thought, "Cool, April's online," and shot her the note. As it turns out Brandon also uses a picture of Jeep as his profile picture and he was the one online, the one I had sent the message to. You know girls, a 'Hey Bebe' between women is a silly innocent thing. Directed at a women's husband, it may be received as you hitting on husband. Brandon was very sweet to reply with a quick note but I am sure he was wondering why in the world his wife's crazy friend was so boldly flirting with him. I emailed April back right away.

******

"Your husband might... might, think I have the hots for him. I am bright red and going to go crawl into a hole and die now. I'll miss you, it's been nice knowing you."

I will now be checking, rechecking, and then checking again to see if I am emailing the right person before using such words as Bebe, darling, hot stuff, etc...

Thursday, July 17, 2008

There are those moments, every mother experiences them, when the house gets very quiet and you pause, take a deep breathe and think "Ah, this is wonderful, peace!" And then suddenly, panic. "Peace? Why is there peace and quiet in my house? Why is nobody yelling? Surely somebody has been wronged, slapped, or tortured in some way!" Then comes that sinking feeling. If all is quiet in my home then somethingmust be terribly wrong." You hesitate, if only for a moment. "How bad can it be?" You wonder guiltily. "Should I really go check and risk ruining the serenity?" But alas you search out the situation and every great, great once in awhile you discover that this peace really is just a rare, precious moment.

Like the day last year when I found Bella and Buddy sitting quietly side by side reading. I snuck a picture and then tip toed off. When all was still quiet sometime later I decided to go have one more look at my adorable kids. I just love to see them getting along. And that they were doing something to improve their minds was just a wonderful bonus. However, this time I did not find them lost in a wonderful imaginary world. Instead I found this...

Now we do live in Texas, it is hot, and sometimes the children get very sweaty. They get sweaty even when they are just sitting around, not really being particularly active... this was not one of those times. Bella was in the process of potty training gone bad, and this 'moisture' soaking my children's heads was due to the puddle they were playing in. I do love the look it gave Bella's hair.

Look at those waves. If only I could bottle and sell tee-tee. O.K. maybe not.

And what was Hoss doing while all this was going on? What every sweet little newborn does.

Monday, July 14, 2008

I was going to be one of those mothers who had her children completely potty trained before their 2nd birthday. After all I had been using the toilet for over 20 years, couldn't be that hard to teach somebody else to do it, right?

Bella was 3 months shy of her third birthday by the time we got her trained. And that was because after 2 weeks of having 3 children in diapers after Hoss was born I decided THAT was enough. She was trained within a week. I have several really good excuses for why she was so old before we potty trained her. Want to hear them? No. O.k.

Then there was Buddy. He turned 2 in September. I was going to start potty training him the following Spring. (long story as to why I was waiting until spring) Around January or February of this year he got tired of waiting and started potty training himself. I'm serious. I think it had a little bit to do with gummy Shrek treats that he wanted to get his hands on and his teeth in.

So now two potty trained kids later I am still buying diapers for 3. Why? Because nobody is night time trained. They aren't even nap time trained. I have tried half heartedly with Bella but the girl pees... a lot. And let's face it. When they are still making diapers big enough to fit, sometimes it is just easier to slap one on and send them on their way.

N and I are taking a financial class and so sat down to do the budget on Tuesday night. When I realized I may one day have to decide between my Peanut M&Ms (a staple for me) and diapers for my kids, I sent Elyse to bed for her nap without a diaper the very next day. And... she woke up dry. Did it again the next day, and, she woke up dry. It's now been 5 days in a row with no nap time accident. Go Bella!! We're going to master that for a couple more days and then aim for nighttime. Then on to Buddy... unless he beats me to it. If all else fails maybe I can find a way to make diapers out of M&M packages.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

I am not one of those paparazzi type moms that walks around tormenting family with snapshots and 'candid' poses. In fact I rarely remember to take my camera along for events. On the rare occasion that I remember to take the camera I forget to actually take pictures.

Oddly enough my kids are notorious for doing something they deem cute or clever and asking, "Can you take a picture of us?"

Yesterday was full of such moments. I have to admit, in my opinion they are quite good at realizing what really is cute and clever. Or maybe it is just that they are always tending towards being both cute and clever.

Here are just a few of yesterdays photo ops!

She was trying to hold him so that they could dance together.It was really more like a 'tumbling' act.

Monday, July 7, 2008

I don't know about you but we had a fabulous, fun filled, and very busy weekend.

Friday we joined some church friends and a whole lot of rednecks (the table next to us was doing jello shots.) out at the park for a picnic and some fireworks. The kids discovered what has become my least favorite piece of playground equipment in the whole wide world. The Seesaw. I HATE that thing. I was trying to be a good mommy and fight every urge I had to take my kids far far away from the death trap. I was so tempted to take Bella and Buddy and plop them into the Pack 'N Play right along side Hoss. I didn't, I let them play on the Seesaw with their new friend Evan, our pastor's grandson who was visiting. They loved it. The reason I know they loved it is because they both tend to shy away from things that scare them or have, in the past, caused them any amount of physical pain. But even after Bella fell of the seat, landed on her back, and then had her seat come falling back down landing on her pudgy little tummy, she wanted to get back up there and try it again. That's how I know she was enjoying herself. Good for her, bad for me. I decided to stand even a little bit closer to all of the fun in order to prevent another accident.

After a few minutes I decided to back off a little and give her and Evan some space. They had received a week long seminar on Seesaw safety from me and were doing just fine. I turned to walk the thirty steps back to our little group of friends and I hear "Hoof!" and then sobbing. This time it was Buddy. N reached him before I did. He had gotten a little too close to the board on it's way up. It had smacked him on the underside of his chin causing him to bite into his tongue. Seriously, you could see deep teeth marks in his tongue. His teeth don't line up very well which makes him have a hard time chewing sometimes. This turns out to be lucky for him or he may very well have lost part of his tongue. Ouch!

The fireworks were awesome for a small town production.

The kids found a cool little cubby in a tree after I had had enough of the stupid Seesaw. Their new pal Evan is on the right. He was a super sweet kid!

Bella insists he is just her friend. I don't know, it sure looks like love to me.

Saturday we went to Sea World. Some advice - DO NOT GO TO SEA WORLD DURING A LONG HOLIDAY WEEKEND. Did this enter our minds before we, invited family, drove an hour to the Park, and told the kids exactly where we were going? No! If it had we would have been spending a nice quiet Saturday at home. Despite the masses we had a great time. The kids were all troupers, with no naps. Even Hoss made it through with out any melt downs.

Here we are waiting for a show to start!

Ya know, just in case you wanted to see the inside of Bella's nose.

Umm... Much better?!

Inside the penguin egg, waiting to hatch according to Bella.

We are anxious to go back again when they are not as crowded. We could not have asked for a better weekend. I hope everyone else's was as good as ours.

I am sure you have all spent the weekend wondering how Hoss' bowels are doing. To put an end to your suspense he is back to regularly scheduled pooping. Yippee Hoss. We get to cut back on his meds even more next week!!!

**I have read several blogger's posts about lurkers. I don't even asume that I have any of these people who come back time after time to read my blog but never comment. I do know that I can't even seem to get my daddy to comment on my blog. "Oh Daddy, where are you?" Perhaps I have offended him in the past. Although I can't imagine how .Can anyone think of a good reason why my dad might be avoiding me?**

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

To all of my faithful readers who have stuck it out, have come by blogglingbrooks everyday in hopes of finding what they were looking for. Just to leave disappointed that the content left a little something to be desired. I know it has been far too long. But fear not devoted followers, for at last I bring you more of what you crave. What you come here anticipating - another story regarding the bowel habits of one of my very own beloved children. Yes, it is true. The fading of hope for all posts that are poop ends right here, tonight. And it is all in thanks to a little boy named Hoss. (Who will probably smother me in my sleep one day when he gets a hold of such revealing stories told throughout his life by me.) Monday’s snippet , with photos of Hoss doing... what Hoss was doing (go read it if you’re so curious) was just a teaser. This is a whole post devoted to nothing but poop.

I am at a loss of understanding for how this little man’s bowels work. In the past I have mentioned the baby’s problems with constipation. We had taken him to the doctor about the problem when he was around 4 to 6 months old. The doctor gave us a prescription strength laxative. It worked for a few days and then the problem returned. Without going into too much detail he would not go poop for several days and then when he would go it was a HUGE stool and he would scream and cry as he finally passed it (many times with help from us) and often it caused some tearing. Maybe some of you are thinking that that WAS too much detail. Maybe some of you need to lighten up and become more comfortable discussing your bathroom habits with others. As comfortable as say, maybe, my own family. Maybe some of you think that my family is a little too comfortable in this department. Maybe some of you are right.

So, back to the doctor, the doctor gives us something different. This works for a few days. Then comes diarrhea, and then comes HUGE almost impossible stool to pass surrounded by diarrhea. I tell you, only one of my family members could experience constipation and diarrhea at the same time. (hmm, you would think someone so comfortable talking about poop would not have to rely on spell check to spell diarrhea.)

What do you think we did next? That’s right we discussed it with the doctor… again. He told us to give it a couple of more weeks. If we did not see improvement the next step would be a pediatric gastroenterologist. (Man poop related words are hard to spell) Who would, most likely, do a biopsy of the bowel. Our doctor was starting to think it might be a nerve problem that would require surgery. Hoss was 11 months old at the time. This did not sound appealing to me. I’m guessing he would not have been crazy about it either.

N decided to call his Aunt who is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner in California. (Maybe it is just medical terms in general that are hard to spell, hmm, interesting) We rely heavily on Aunt Judy, as she knows practically EVERYTHING. When she heard how much of the medicine we were giving Hoss she told us that was an adult dose. She said what probably happened is that something backed him up. I’m guessing it was starting him on solid foods. So we started giving him laxatives to fix the problem. But we were giving him such a large dose (which, by the way, was the amount the doc had told us to give him) that it caused severe diarrhea. This weakened his bowel muscles, which made it not function properly. Made sense to me. She gave us an alternative recommendation for administering the medicine. It started working practically over night. We did this for two months to strengthen that muscle back up. He has been pooping along like any other normal kid. A normal bowel every 1 to 2 days as recommended for toddlers everywhere. Well Monday was the true test. Had the medicine worked? Could we start backing off slowly like Aunt Judy suggested? Or would I have a 14 month old toddling, drooling, laxative addict? I know it is my job as a mother to screw him up, but I mean really! Come on! I can think of so many other areas in which I am doing that. Why add poop inducing medicine addict to the list?

Monday came and went with no poop. Tuesday, a record 2 dirty diapers. Today, 3 dirty diapers. What? Tell me please how cutting his dosage in half has caused him to poop more. Only one of my family members I tell you, only one of my family members.

This third video is kicking my butt and to be honest kind of ticking me off because I cannot do all the reps for some of the exercises. Grrr! I hate that!!!! I am going to keep at it even though I am not seeing as much in the way of results as I was in the beginning. I keep missing 2 days a week instead of 1 so that certainly doesn't help. And I should probably start trying to eat better if I want to see better results.